


4 times Otabek bailed Yuri out, and 1 time he didn't have to

by pictureperfectporcelain



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Islamophobia, M/M, Oneshot, Otaburi, Yuribek, otayuri - Freeform, the tags make it sound angstier than it is, what even is the ship name, yuri just keeps getting arrested
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9661937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pictureperfectporcelain/pseuds/pictureperfectporcelain
Summary: “You got in a fight with JJ because he got bronze instead of me?”“He unrightfully got bronze! It’s a faulted system, I tell you. He screwed up his jumps, and you were ahead of him! Anybody with half a brain could see it.”“But what did you do?”“I punched him."





	

###  **1**

* * *

 

The first time Otabek bailed Yuri Plisetsky out of jail wasn’t even a day after Yuri won the Grand Prix Final.

 

After a long night of awkward conversations with skating-enthusiasts and athletes alike, all he had wanted to do was get back to his hotel room and sleep for a century. The only thing he could be thankful for was that nobody had pole-danced this year; from what he had seen, last year had been much worse. 

However, he only got about an hour of sleep before his phone started ringing. He groaned and picked it up after a minute.

“... Hello?” he said, his voice coming out groggy.

“Otabek Altin?”

“Yes?”

“This is the police department,” said a stern male voice from the other end of the line. “We’re going to need you to come pick up your friend.”

 

***

 

That was also the first time Otabek saw Yuri look apologetic. As far as he knew, Yuri never regretted anything, _ever._ But even from behind the bars of the holding cell he was in, his face looked unmistakably sheepish.

He was also uncharacteristically silent while Otabek signed him out and paid the bail.

“Thanks for getting me,” was the first thing he said when they were back at the hotel.

Otabek regarded him coolly. He wasn’t exactly angry, but he was curious, and a bit pissed off that he had been dragged out of bed so late (or early, depending on how you wanted to look at it). “It’s not like I had much of a choice, did I? You only get one phone call.”

“Is that true?” Yuri asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “That’s what they always say in American movies.”

Yuri raised his eyebrows. “We’re in Barcelona.”

They walked through the lobby in silence, and it wasn’t until they reached the elevator that Otabek spoke again.

“So, are you going to tell me what you were arrested for?”

“The officer didn’t tell you?”

“It’s probably classified.”

Yuri hesitated before speaking. “Well, after the banquet ended, I ran into JJ in the lobby…”

He sighed and shook his head. There was never a good outcome when JJ and Yuri mixed.

“Don’t give me that look. He _robbed_ you! You deserved bronze, not that shitstick.”

That made Otabek start.

“I highly doubt you got arrested for punching him,” replied Otabek.

“... and I also kicked him a little bit. And then _he_ pushed _me,_ so I had to push him back…”

Another sigh, but this time, Otabek wasn’t angry. After all, it wasn’t everyday that someone got in a fight to defend your honour, especially not when that someone was Yuri Plisetsky.

 

**2**

* * *

 

The second time Otabek bailed Yuri out, it was from an airport jail, which he hadn’t even known existed until then.

He was on his way to watch the European Championships, along with many of his fellow skaters (some of whom would actually be competing in them). His plane was just touching down when his phone chimed; a text from Yuri. 

(Not that texts from Yuri were uncommon, especially now. Since they would both be at the Championships, they had been making plans to hang out before the competition for weeks now.)

So he didn’t bother checking it immediately; he decided to get his luggage from baggage claim before seeing what his friend said. It was probably something dumb, anyway. Lately, Yuri had taken offence to Otabek’s “ _prehistoric”_ way of life, and was trying to educate him by sending him “memes” multiple times a day.

But his phone kept dinging, even as he waited to disembark the plane. Eventually, he punched in the code and read the messages.

_yo loser, can you come get me out of airport jail_

_otabek??_

_theyre only letting me keep my phone for another 5 minutes_

_come on i dont want to ask viktor or katsudon_

_theyre gonna give me a lecture bc they think theyre my parents_

_bekaaaaaa_

Otabek sighed, not that he was surprised. It was very like his younger friend to get repeatedly arrested. And it was true that he couldn’t just leave him to Nikiforov and Katsuki. He typed out his reply while walking towards the luggage terminal.

**_I’ll be there soon. Do you have your luggage?_ **

_yeah_

_your the best_

**_*You’re._ **

_fuck off_

He grinned down at his phone and was so distracted that he promptly ran into a wall.

 

***

 

It only took him a few minutes to grab his luggage, since he only had two bags. One had his costume and clothes, another his skates. He would have packed it all in one bag if his coach hadn’t insisted he pack his costumes and his skates separately; that way, if the airport lost one of his bags, he wouldn’t be left with nothing for the competition.

It took him considerably longer to find the airport jail.

When he finally did, Yuri was waiting with a sweet-looking young lady who didn’t look like she could even speak sternly, nevermind arrest people.

“What did he do?” asked Otabek immediately.

Yuri spluttered, angry at being referred to as “he”. _But he deserves it,_ though Otabek. _If he stopped getting arrested, he wouldn’t have this problem._

“He was caught trying to steal a bag from baggage claim,” said the officer. Otabek shot Yuri a _look,_ half reprimanding, half disbelieving. Why in hell's name would Yuri resort to something so petty.

The younger boy kicked his foot at the ground, scowling. “I didn’t steal what was _in_ the luggage.”

“That is technically true,” the woman said. “He took the liberty of dumping the things inside the bag out before he ran away.”

“It was leopard print and really cool,” he muttered.

“It was _someone else’s property,_ ” said the officer.

Sensing an argument brewing, Otabek stepped in quickly. “Thank you for contacting me,” he told her. “Come on, Yuri. We’re going.”

While they walked through the airport with their bags (and Otabek made very sure that it was with only _their_ bags this time), they were both silent. Yuri looked like he was gearing up to apologize, but he refused to meet Otabek’s eyes.

Quite frankly, he looked embarrassed.

Just when Yuri opened his mouth to speak, Otabek started laughing hysterically. He knew it wasn’t funny - that theft was a serious thing, and that Yuri was completely in the wrong - but the whole thing struck him as funny. Yuri stealing a bag and dumping the contents on the airport ground, Yuri stuck in a tiny prison cell, Yuri ready to fight an airport security officer. Yuri currently scowling at him.

“Are you _laughing_ at me?” he demanded.

Otabek was laughing too hard to respond.

“You are! Listen here, asshole-”

When Yuri shoved his finger in Otabek’s face, it just made him laugh harder. So they left the airport like that, an exasperated blonde thief leading a hysterical man, rolling his eyes the whole way.

###  **3**

* * *

 

The third time Otabek bailed Yuri out of jail, it was because he almost got arrested himself. And, like the last time, it was in an airport.

This time, they were together, though. Otabek had had a small competition in America, that he had only done because his coach said it would be good publicity.

(Apparently, Otabek had a publicity problem. He wasn’t active on social media and he was from a small, unknown country in Asia, so he didn’t have as many fans as other skaters did.)

He hated going to America, and not just because of the culture shock. It was just that America was so _loud._ Everywhere you went, there were advertisements, opinions, and patriotism being shoved down your throat. He thought it was tiring.

But the worse thing was getting in and out of America. They had incredibly tight security, especially for people of his ethnicity.

So that was why, when he heard the words, “ _Excuse me, sir, you have been randomly selected for secondary passport control,_ ” he wasn’t surprised in the least. Yuri, however, looked shocked.

“But we’re boarding a plane in less than an hour!” said Yuri to the security guard. “What the hell are you checking him for?”

The security guard looked at his passport and back at his face. “We’re sorry, but it’s policy.”

“ _Policy?_ ” Yuri exclaimed. “You said it was _random_!”

“Yura, leave it,” said Otabek.

“I don’t understand why they think it’s okay to make us late to our plane, or why it’s so important they check you!”

Otabek loathed saying it out loud, but he knew Yuri wasn’t going to shut up until he got an explanation.

“Yuri, Kazakhstan is a Muslim country.”

The younger boy’s mouth formed a thin line at that.

“Well, I don’t see what that has to do with anything. You’re not dangerous. He’s not even coming from Kazakhstan, for god’s sakes!”

“Again, we’re sorry,” said the security guard, not looking sorry at all. Otabek allowed himself to be taken to the side of the line.

Yuri stormed after them, looking angrier by the second. “Don’t,” he said, but Yuri didn’t listen.

He got in the security guard’s face. “We’re going to miss our plane, and I guarantee you that he’s _not_ dangerous _._ He’s a _figure skater,_ for fuck’s sake!”

“ _You’re_ a figure skater, and _you’re_ pretty dangerous,” reminded Otabek. Yuri shushed him with a wave of his arm.

The guard pondered this for a second, then raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure there’s no figure skaters in Kazakhstan. They’re not very accepting of queers there, you see.”

Two things followed in the moment after that.

Otabek flinched, since what the man had said hit a little too close to home. It was true that Kazakhstan was a horrible place for a man like himself - namely, gay. Before becoming an international star, he used to get beaten up on a weekly basis for choosing to skate.

The second thing was Yuri seeing his reaction to the (homophobic and islamophobic) statement, and proceeding promptly to pull back his fist and punch the security guard in the face. _Hard._

Even as he was led away in handcuffs with Otabek being led along next to him, there wasn’t a trace of remorse or regret on his face.

 _We’re definitely going to miss our flight,_ thought Otabek.

**4**

* * *

 

The fourth time Yuri got arrested was only a month after the fiasco at the airport. Otabek was visiting Moscow under the pretense of “gaining new inspiration from a new training environment.”

They both knew it was bullshit. He didn’t have to go to Moscow for that; there were much bigger and more beautiful cities in the world. But none of those cities had Yuri in them, so there he was.

It had been Yuri’s idea to go out to eat on his second night in Russia. He had ditched Yakov at the rink ( _“think of it as a really long bathroom break”_ ) to meet up with Otabek and show him around the city first. They had fun going in and out of shops and trying to steal more than their fair share of free samples from the market. It wasn’t until they actually got to the restaurant that everything went to hell.

The restaurant was a nice little place called _Dolkabar,_ which Yuri had insisted on because they served good authentic Russian food.

(It was ironic how few restaurants in Moscow actually served Russian food. It was surprisingly multi-cultural; they passed two Black Thai’s and an Olive Garden on the way to Dolkabar.)

Yuri ordered for them, regardless of Otabek being able to read the menu, meaning they ate a lot of pirozhki and borscht. The meal was good, and the conversation was better, so they both in good spirits when Otabek got up to use the restroom while Yuri tried to hit him with pieces of filo dough from across the restaurant, because he was classy like that.

When he returned, Yuri’s good mood was gone, and his own went with it.   

“What’s wrong?” he asked, dropping back into his chair. Yuri’s previous smile had fallen off his face completely in the space of 2 minutes, and his hands were balled into tight fists on the table.

“Nothing,” he replied.

“You’re spitting, Yura,” Otabek pointed out.

“Don’t call me that!”

Otabek nodded, and if he felt a pang of hurt, well, he tried not to show it.

“The waiter…” hissed Yuri. His voice broke and he had to restart. “The waiter asked if it was me or my _boyfriend_ paying.”

He blinked, not expecting that. “... So?” Granted, his friend wasn’t the type to take kindly to an implied relationship, but he hadn’t thought of it as such a big deal. Even if his heart sunk further and further into his chest at the sight of Yuri’s angry face.

(Because, really, was the thought so bad?) (Yuri certainly seemed to think so.)

“I’m _not_ gay,” he spat.

Otabek’s heart sunk even further.

“Okay,” he said.

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are.”

But Yuri didn’t look satisfied. In fact, he was looking more and more upset with every second that passed.

“Russia’s not accepting. I can’t… I _can’t_ be a faggot. That’s disgusting!”

And whatever was left of Otabek’s beaten-up heart froze to ice. He stood up, pushing his chair back with a loud screech.

“Wha…?”

He whirled around to face his confused friend. “Maybe, for once in your life, you should try _thinking_ about what you say, Yuri.”

“I don’t get it.”

“‘ _I can’t be a faggot, that’s disgusting!_ ’” he quoted. “I better leave before I disgust you any further.”

Yuri seemed to understand what he had done then, because his face fell more, which hadn’t seemed possible until that moment. 

“I didn’t mean-”

“I don’t care whether or not you’re a homosexual or not,” he said. “All I care about is not being made to feel bad that I _am_ , and damn it Yuri, you’re not very good at thinking about what other people feel.”

With that, he threw down enough to pay for half of their food and walked out into the chilly air. His skin felt too tight, like something was trying to break out of his body and escape.

He heard the sounds of fast footsteps behind him, undoubtedly Yuri trying to catch up with him, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. He picked up his pace.

When he turned around to look at his blonde friend again, he was getting into the back of a police car, with the manager of the restaurant saying something about “dining and dashing.”

_Damn it. He didn’t pay for his half before he followed me!_

And while he tried to tell himself that Yuri deserved it - that it was _his_ mistake, and that he didn’t deserve Otabek’s kindness right now - he couldn’t just let him rot in a cell in Moscow. He got on his motorcycle and followed the car to the police station.

He waited a few minutes to see if Yuri was going to contact him, as was their routine whenever he got arrested, but his phone didn’t chime.

 _That’s a good thing,_ he told himself. _He should feel bad about contacting you after what he said._

Otabek wrote down the address of the police station so that he would remember it, went back to Yuri’s apartment, and brought his own stuff to a hotel room. He debated leaving a note, but he was pretty sure the situation was pretty self-explanatory.

Then he went back to the police station and bailed him out. He made sure to be out of there before Yuri’s cell could even be unlocked.

 

**+1**

* * *

 

A month passed without any contact between the two skaters, and while Otabek knew he was in the right, it still hurt.

It felt almost like a breakup.

Although Yuri made it very clear that they were never together.

His life was much more boring without Yuri in it, that was for sure. Otabek didn’t know that he had gotten used to constantly texting back and forth with him, skype calls every other day, and impromptu Russian lessons until they were gone.

(None of it made sense. He had lived for 17 years  without any of that, and then in less than two it had become a part of him that he mourned losing.)

Not that he didn’t keep up with what Yuri was doing. He was all over the internet, which Otabek had gotten better at using, and was periodically on the sports channels for some scandal or other.

The latest one? Yuri Plisetsky’s near-arrest.

In the video, Yuri was shown fighting with a man who approached him at a bar. Of course, he was the one to throw the first punch - nobody knew what they were fighting about - but when the man retaliated with his own swinging fists, Yuri backed away and left the nightclub.

The man said he wasn’t pressing  charges.

***

A day after that story was top news in the sports world, Otabek came home from a long day of training to find the apartment unlocked. What he had been expecting when he walked in was a burglary. What he had not been was a certain green-eyed man sitting nervously on his couch.

“Hey,” he said.

Otabek stared.

“Did you… did you pick the lock?”

Yuri flushed. “I waited outside for a while, but your neighbour threatened to call the cops.”

Against his will, he felt his lips quirk upwards into a smile. The ornery old lady next door was a public menace, but she was a good person when it came down to it. “So you risked getting caught for breaking and entering?”

“I didn’t have a choice! I can’t afford to get arrested.” Yuri wrung his hands in his lap and looked at Otabek nervously. “I don’t have anyone to bail me out anymore.”

“That _was_ my unofficial job.”

Something came into Yuri’s eyes, something like hope.

“I would like to talk about rehiring you, then.”

“Why should I let you?”

He looked back at his lap, half-angry, half-sad. “Because I really miss you, Beka. These last months have been absolute fucking hell for me. And I feel bad about what I said in Moscow - I’ve, um, come to terms with some stuff.”

“I saw the video of you punching that guy,” replied Otabek. “How can I be sure you just want to be able to fight again?”

That made Yuri smile. “Does this mean we’re friends again?”

“I’ve only ever had one friend, Yura- I mean, Yuri. I’m not about to lose him over something stupid.”

“It’s fine if you want to call me Yura,” he said. “I told you, I was being an idiot that day I called you a- well, you know. I’ve sorted my shit out.”

Otabek sat down next to him on the couch. “What sort of shit?”

“You don’t want to go there,” insisted Yuri.

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, the biggest things would be my internalized homophobia, my anger issues, my problems expressing emotion in healthy ways,” he counted them on his fingers, “my obsession with being the best all the time, and...” he hesitated and blushed before saying the last thing, “... and my feelings for my best friend.”

Otabek’s heart literally _stopped._ He could have sworn it, in that moment. Then, suddenly, it was beating at twice it’s normal speed. “I thought you weren’t gay.”

“Oh, yeah. I also had to talk to someone about my ‘ _adolescent confusion with sexuality’_ and how the effect of growing up in a homophobic country makes me convert that confusion into anger and direct it inwards as a way of repressing it.”

“Sounds very professional,” he said.

“It is.”

“Well, you better tell all that to your best friend next time you see him.”

“ _What?_ I’m talking about _you,_ idio-” Yuri scowled at Otabek’s smirk. “You were joking.”

“I’ve been told I’m hilarious.”

Suddenly, Yuri threw himself at Otabek, successfully knocking them both off the small couch. “You _ASSHOLE-_ ”

“I thought you were trying to sort out your anger issues, Yura!”

“Oh my god, shut the fuck u-”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, though, because he looked beautiful on top of Otabek with their faces only inches apart and his hair messy and his eyes fierce, trying to tackle the life out of him.

So, really, Otabek couldn’t be blamed for leaning up and kissing him.

And really, he couldn’t be blamed for doing it again when Yuri pulled back to look at him in shock.

And really, neither of them could be blamed if they did it again and again for such a long time that their lungs ran out of air and their lips bruised.

**Author's Note:**

> My second ever Yuri!!! on Ice story! This is total trash, please forgive me, but I really wanted to try my hand at writing something Otayuri and I didn't have many ideas. (If you've read my other story, you'll know that it's kind of my headcanon that Yuri has gotten arrested for stealing a leopard print bag at an airport.) 
> 
> PLEASE VALIDATE ( w h o o p s i mean motivate) ME BY LEAVING COMMENTS! THANKS LOVES!
> 
> Feel free to hmu at my [yoi tumblr!!!](https://yuri-on-ice-ice-babyyyy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
